"Oh Rumple, it's lovely," Belle says, accepting the flower he so graciously holds out to her. It's the boldest red rose she's ever seen. "Where ever did you get it?"
His eyes slide away briefly. "Just an old woman selling flowers."
She remembers another time, another knock, another old woman, and brightens. "It must be the same old woman who came to your castle!"
He smiles fondly at her. "Yes, of course."
"She knows you're a sucker for roses." And she leans forward and gives him a kiss. That is different than at his castle.
"Sweetheart," he says as she walks away to look for a pair of scissors and a vase. "Don't trim the stem."
Five days later Belle has a lovely assortment of roses adorning the table of their front room. The old woman has shown up nearly every day. Sometimes Rumplestiltskin buys her one rose, sometimes two. Yesterday he bought her three beautiful red roses and a sixth, much smaller pink one. She asked about that strange fourth rose and he said he simply couldn't resist its tiny perfection. This earns him one of Belle's beautiful smiles.
That same afternoon there's another knock and this time Rumplestiltskin comes back with seven small yellow roses.
"Why seven?" she asks as she arranges them in with the others, remembering his instructions to not trim the stems.
He shrugs. "She only had seven. I couldn't leave one behind."
Belle likes this sentimental side of her love.
The day he purchases a beautiful nearly black rose and presents it to her with a huge smirk is the day she finds out that Regina has gone missing. Belle is not terribly upset about this. Regina has been a thorn in their sides for too long.
Rumplestiltskin refuses to look for her. Belle is not surprised, really, and doesn't try to talk him into it.
Belle notices a few days later that the old woman no longer shows up at their door and there are no more flowers. But she supposes the over two dozen roses she has sitting on the table at home are more than enough. She hopes when they die out, the old woman will reappear.
She really does love her roses.
Rumplestiltskin comes home early one afternoon to find her caressing one of the flowers and pulls her away with a dark look. If she had to define it, he almost looks jealous. Sometimes she worries about him.
Belle is out at the diner one afternoon when she realizes she hasn't seen Ruby in a little while. She knows that she's been spending all of her time with Rumplestiltskin and feels a little bad about neglecting her friend, so she stops up to chat briefly with Granny.
"Haven't you heard?" Granny asks. "She's disappeared. No one can find her. And she's not the only one. Charming and Snow are gone, as are Emma and Henry. Regina disappeared a few days ago but no one seems to really care about that. And there have been other reports. I haven't seen the dwarves in here since late last week."
Belle leaves the diner feeling terribly worried. Everyone is disappearing and she wonders if this is part of the curse, now that it's broken. Did they end up back in the Enchanted Forest? Who would be next? She hopes that if she's taken back there it's with Rumplestiltskin at her side.
She asks Rumplestiltskin when she stops into the shop later and he nearly chokes on the tea he's drinking. It seems he wasn't aware of their disappearances either.
It's nearly three weeks later when the suspicion starts to grow and it all begins when Belle swears she hears a grunt from one of the roses when she moves it.
She takes a closer look at her lovely flowers and realizes they should be wilting by now. But they aren't. They're still as fresh as the day she got them.
She confronts Rumplestiltskin almost as soon as he gets home and the cringe on his face tells all.
"Why?" is all she can think to ask him. Why would he do it?
"They kept interrupting us."
Belle cocks her head to the side slightly and realizes what all those knocks on the door meant. She groans.
He shrugs. "I brought us home take-out…nice night by the fire? We can watch a movie."
Belle looks at her collection of roses. "You'll turn them back tomorrow?"
He nods and sighs.
"Ok then." They walk together to the living room, Rumplestiltskin just slightly in front of Belle. She reaches out to grab his arm. "Just one thing, Rumple…"
"Yes dear?"
"Exactly who was I caressing that time you walked in on me touching the flowers?"
He smirks and looks away. "You really don't want to know that, sweetheart."